Deflection
by InitialLuv
Summary: A close call on a case yields some serious talk at the breakfast table.


_**Author's Note:**_ There is not a specific time frame to this story, other than it's before the episode **"You Don't Hear the One That Gets You,"** in which McCormick gets shot (the first time).

**-ck**

Disclaimer: I do not own these beloved characters, and I am writing for fun and feedback, **not** for profit.

* * *

_**DEFLECTION**_

**by InitialLuv**

"Embezzlement is one thing, but then fabricating that 'boating accident' to get rid of your partner in crime, because he got a case of the guilts?" Milton C. Hardcastle shook his head disgustedly at Roy Zeman, C.P.A. "Murder one carries a lot longer prison term than embezzlement," Hardcastle commented.

Zeman didn't answer. His eyes darted between the infuriating judge and his guard-dog ex-con. With a sudden forward leap, the rouge accountant rudely shoved Hardcastle, so that he fell backwards into Mark McCormick, causing both men to tumble to the floor. Then Zeman bolted for the exit of the office building.

McCormick gained his feet first, and held out a hand to help up the judge. Hardcastle abruptly waved him off. "Go! Go get him!" He pointed needlessly.

Mark sprinted out of the building. _Why do they run? Why do they **always** run?_ Unable to immediately locate Zeman, Mark paused to look around, then determined the parking lot would be the most likely place someone would go, if they were trying to make a quick getaway. He ran toward the lot, and was pleased to see he'd been correct; the accountant was heading the same way, and hadn't gotten too far ahead. McCormick increased his speed, and Zeman, sensing his approach, momentarily stopped.

Mark saw the glint of steel in the man's hand as the metal caught the sunlight, and the ex-con reacted by instinct, ducking and taking cover behind the only protection available – a relatively large maple tree. He'd barely made it behind the trunk when he heard the first report of the gun, loud and powerful. _Gotta be a .40 or a .45,_ he thought. He wondered when he'd gotten so good at identifying guns by their sound. He thought maybe he should be worried about that odd talent. And then there was a second shot, occurring simultaneously with a explosion of stinging pain in his neck, and Mark completely forgot what he'd been thinking about.

Mark slid down into a sitting position, bracing his back against the tree trunk. Absently he was aware that the bad guy was getting away, that he had made it to his vehicle and was even now peeling out onto the street. Any other time McCormick would be right behind him, at the wheel of the Coyote, and his beloved race car would be getting undeserved bullet holes. But he didn't even look in the direction Zeman had gone. Once he'd clapped his hand against his neck and drew it away to see it stained with blood, he'd decided he wasn't moving an inch.

The door to the offices banged open, and Hardcastle came jogging out, his head swiveling as he exited. He ran down the sidewalk and toward the parking lot, then came up short when he saw the Coyote was still parked – his fast gun was not pursuing the escaping bad guy. "Where – " the judge muttered, turning around and looking back at the building.

"Judge." The call was strained and somewhat breathy, but it was loud enough that Milt could track the source. He paused in mid-turn, then quickly made for the tree that McCormick was resting against. When he came around to the other side, he saw Mark had his right hand held tightly against his neck, and that there was a small amount of blood on the fingers.

"What the hell happened? Why'd you let him get away?" Hardcastle asked.

Mark sent a hard look of disbelief at the judge. "Because the guy was shooting wild, and I got hit!"

Hardcastle grunted softly. "Kiddo, if you got shot in the neck, you wouldn't be here talking to me. Let me see." He crouched down to get a better look.

Somewhat relieved by the judge's words, as blunt as they were, McCormick cautiously pulled his hand away from his neck. When no blood came bursting out of a severed artery, the younger man started to breathe easier. He could feel his rapid heartbeats begin to slow down.

"Hmm." Milt leaned forward, gently prying away the bloodied collar of Mark's tee shirt. Then he rested back on his haunches, and eyed the tree trunk. "There you go," he said, gesturing at a point above McCormick's head.

"What?"

The judge rose, then reached down and grasped McCormick's arm, slowly pulling him into a standing position. He again pointed at the tree. "Look here."

Mark did as told, and saw that there was a gouge in the tree trunk, roughly five feet up, where a bullet was now embedded. It appeared that a small part of the trunk had exploded out when the bullet had struck. There was an absence of bark around the gouge, and Mark's hand again went to his neck. "Damn. I did get hit, only with shrapnel."

"Shrapnel is metal. This is wood. And don't play with it!" Hardcastle pulled the younger man's hand down. "It doesn't look too serious, but we should get you to the ER so they can check you out."

McCormick was rapidly regaining his composure. "Not by ambulance. It's not that bad."

"Nah, we can take the Coyote. I'm driving, though!" the judge stated hurriedly.

Mark shrugged, then winced. "Oh, that hurt."

"Yeah, it also made it bleed a little more. Maybe try not to move like that. And here." Hardcastle dug into his back pocket, withdrawing a handkerchief. "Use this. You can probably get it to stop bleeding if you keep pressure on it."

McCormick looked warily at the bandanna in the judge's hand. "I don't know, Judge. Is that clean?"

"Would you rather get blood in your car?"

"Give me the handkerchief," Mark grumbled.

* * *

The next morning, sporting a gauze bandage on his neck and moving somewhat stiffly, McCormick made his way from the gatehouse to the patio, where Hardcastle was already tucking into a breakfast of eggs, bacon, muffins, and coffee. He had the sports section of the morning paper in front of his face, and spoke without lowering it. "Your plate is warming in the oven." The judge nodded his head in the direction of the kitchen. "I didn't know when you were getting up and I didn't want it to get cold."

Mark shook his head gently, trying not to jostle his injury. "Why didn't you wake me up, with your 'basketball-against-my-window' alarm?"

Milt lowered the paper part-way to send an exasperated look at McCormick. "I figured I'd let you sleep in, so I wouldn't have to hear you whine about your neck and how much pain you're in." He lifted the paper again, muttering to himself, "A pain in the neck is right – a big pain in _my_ neck!"

Instead of going into the house to retrieve his breakfast, Mark pulled out a chair and sat at the patio table. After sitting quietly for a few moments, he asked hesitantly, "Judge? Uh . . . Can I ask you something?"

Hearing the serious tone in the younger man's voice, Hardcastle lowered the newspaper again, then abandoned it completely, folding it to set it aside. "What, kiddo?"

"I was – I wanted to know – Have you ever been shot?" McCormick studied the table top, frowning slightly. He wasn't exactly comfortable with the bluntness of his question, but was unable to think of another way to ask.

There was a brief silence, and Mark looked up, to see Hardcastle regarding him blandly. "Why do you want to know? Wanna compare scars?"

Mark rose abruptly with an embarrassed huff. "Never mind," he murmured, then quickly left the patio to head for the main house kitchen.

Milt shrugged to himself, picking up the paper with one hand, and his coffee mug with the other. But he could no longer focus on the previous day's sports scores, and his coffee suddenly tasted bitter. Hardcastle had discarded the newspaper and was moodily staring into his coffee mug when McCormick returned to the patio, juggling a container of juice, a glass, his plate of food, and a bottle of ketchup. Successfully making it to the table without dropping anything, Mark regained his seat, then upended the ketchup bottle, shaking the red sauce out onto his eggs.

"McCormick - "

The kid interrupted him. "Nothing against your cooking, Judge. I just like ketchup on my eggs."

Milt cleared his throat. "No, that's not. . ." he trailed off, then exhaled sharply.

"What is it, then?" Mark shoveled some ketchup-coated eggs into his mouth, then while chewing, he poured himself a glass of orange juice. He eyed Hardcastle inquiringly as he poured.

"Aw, forget it." Milt grabbed the paper up and shook it noisily, burying his nose behind it.

McCormick took a muffin off the platter on the table, breaking off a piece to toss into his mouth. "C'mon, Judge. What?" He swallowed, then snorted knowingly. "Oh, I know. You're gonna yell at me for letting Zeman get away. I was expecting you to yesterday, but I guess you were being 'nice' since I got hurt. Well, come on, out with it."

Hardcastle rustled through the papers on the table, found the section he wanted, and tossed it to the younger man. "Don't need to yell at you. He's in custody." As McCormick perused the related article, Milt went on: "While you were getting patched up in the ER yesterday, I called Giles to let him know Zeman was in the wind. He sent out an APB down the coast for the guy's car, figuring he was headed for Mexico. They caught him in Oceanside." The judge cocked his head in a partially apologetic gesture. "I actually knew that before the paper came this morning; Bill called me last night to let me know. I would've told you, but you'd already turned in for the night." McCormick had retired to the gatehouse uncharacteristically early the night before, in deference to his injury and a post-adrenaline exhaustion.

"Well, I know now." Mark dropped the paper and went back to his eggs, but it wasn't long before he noticed the tense silence coming from across the table. He leaned back in his seat and sent the judge an impatient look. "Okay, this is enough. Spill."

Hardcastle scowled, took a deep breath, then sat forward, crossing his arms to rest them on the patio table. He faltered briefly under McCormick's expectant gaze, then plowed ahead.

"Yeah, I've been shot. More than once."

Mark's eyes widened momentarily, then his curiosity kicked into high gear and he started talking rapidly. "More than once? Was it when you were a cop? Or in the army? Or both? Where did you get shot? Were they serious? What am I saying, of course they must have been serious, you got _shot_. How many times?"

"If you'd shut up, McCormick, I'd tell you!"

Mark obediently and instantly shut up. Milt scoffed lightly, then continued.

"It's not like someone was using me for target practice. I've been shot twice. Both times as a cop." There had been other injuries during his time serving overseas, not all of them physical. "One was in the side, through-and-through." He leaned slightly to the left, and patted his right side. "Ended up in the hospital for that one, and they made me take two weeks off." He grimaced, still bothered by the injustice of it.

"What about the other time?"

The judge inhaled again, then pulled his collar aside over his left shoulder. "Right here." McCormick bent closer, seeing the small divot at the point where the judge's neck and shoulder met. "That was my last year, a couple months before I left the force. It was just a graze, but it scared me half to death. I felt that bullet hit me and I thought that was it, that I was dead."

Mark leaned back again, and his hand involuntarily traveled up to the bandage on his own neck. "But you were okay, huh? It was just a scratch."

"Yeah. I got lucky." _And so did you, _Milt thought immediately. The fact was, the bullet that had hit the tree must have been damn close to hitting McCormick, for him to get injured by the flying bark.

McCormick nodded slowly, then suddenly grinned. "If luck is all you need, I should be fine, being Irish and all." Although his grin seemed somewhat forced, and there was a "whistling past the graveyard" feel to his words.

Hardcastle hmmphed. "Luck is fine, but these cases can get pretty hairy. When I arranged for you to work with me, I didn't mean for you to get hurt. You know, more than a few expected bumps or bruises. . . And if a guy starts firing at you, you need to keep yourself safe."

"How, Judge?" Mark's face was now serious, verging on irritated. "I can't stop chasing a guy just because he pulls out a gun. If I did that, we'd never catch anyone. So far I've been doing okay ducking and dodging. And since I'm not going to have a gun and be able to shoot back, that's gonna have to do. Unless you have a better idea."

The two men stared across the table at each other, over the remains of their breakfast.

Neither of them offered up a better idea.

_**END**_


End file.
